The Mage in Black Read Free Page B

would be a good place to start. And after the fiasco at the Kum-N-Go, I was more determined than ever to throw myself into learning everything about magic so I’d have the upper hand when Granny and I had our showdown.
    Adam maneuvered through traffic for a few minutes before he spoke. When he did, he addressed Giguhl. “Maisie won’t hate her.”
    I perked up but refused to be the one to break our stalemate. Luckily, Giguhl spoke for me. “How do you know?”
    “Maisie doesn’t hate easily. As long as I’ve known her, she’s never said a bad thing about anyone.”
    “And how long is that?” Giguhl said.
    “A long time.” He smiled fondly. “We were practically raised together.”
    The fondness in his tone gave me pause. He’d spoken of her before, but I never really asked much about their relationship. This was the first I’d heard they’d grown up together. I wanted to ask if the affection was of the brotherly sort or something more but decided I’d rather rip out my own fingernails than give voice to my curiosity on that matter.
    “What’s Maisie like?” Giguhl asked. Probably more to fill the silence than out of real curiosity.
    Adam seemed to relax a bit, warming up to the topic. “She looks like Sabina, of course, only there are subtle differences.”
    “Like what?” Giguhl asked.
    “Her hair’s shorter. And where Sabina’s hair is red with black streaks, hers is more black with red streaks, if that makes sense.”
    “Not really, but go on,” Giguhl prodded. I shot the demon a grateful look. He winked back.
    “Well, she loves to paint and has a knack for hedge magic.”
    “Hedge magic? Is that like landscape design or something?”
    Adam chuckled at the demon’s lame joke. “Not exactly. Hedge mages use herbs and plants to make potions. She used to bug the faeries visiting from the Seelie Court to teach her about plants.” A fond smile spread on his face, as if he was picturing a memory. “This one time she broke into the greenhouse so she could make a potion to change her hair. She said she wanted it to be all black so she’d be all mage. Only the potion ended up turning her hair green temporarily.”
    He turned left onto a street teeming with billboards, flashing lights, and people milling about like ants on a hill. “Welcome to Times Square,” he said. I spared the scenery a glance, but I was more interested in what he’d just said about Maisie.
    “Why did she want to get rid of the red?” I asked, despite my promise to keep my mouth shut. Red hair is the hallmark of being a vampire. It’s a trait we inherited from Cain, the male who fathered the first of our race. “Did the mage kids make fun of her for being mixed-blood?”
    Adam paused and shot me a glance. “No, nothing like that,” he began slowly, as if readjusting to speaking to me again. “It wasn’t like she was an outcast or anything. I think she just considered herself fully mage and wanted to get rid of the symbol that marked her as being only half.”
    I could relate to that feeling, although for me it was the opposite. Being raised among vampires, who had no qualms about treating me like an outcast, I’d prayed and prayed to the Great Mother that I’d wake up one morning with solid red hair. Knowing Maisie had struggled with similar issues made me relax a bit. Maybe I’d finally have someone who understood what it was like to never really belong.
    “Well, if she’s anything like Sabina, I’m sure she’s delightful,” Giguhl said, his voice full of irony.
    “Bite me, demon.”
    Adam turned onto a circle and followed it around to an exit for Central Park West.
    A few minutes later, he slowed near a large apartment building and put on his blinker. In the dark, it loomed like something out of a horror film. With its Germanic spires and gables, it was the kind of building you might expect to see covered in gargoyles. Before I could fully process the strange architecture, Adam turned into a port cochere on